Sociologically speaking -- the Lincoln Memorial Incident: Culture War is Religious War

Excellent insight in this article by Rod Dreher. Well worth everyone's attention. (Hightlights are my own, of course.) We all need to understand -- very clearly -- what is afoot here, and prepare ourselves for the coming Societal Meltdown.

The incident at the Lincoln memorial, sociologically speaking...an excerpt:

Connerton does not, as I recall, address Christian anti-Semitism, but taking his insights and applying them to the statement from the historian, one can see why the persistence of the Jewish people was such an intolerable thorn in the side of Christians, who came up with a rationale for persecuting them. The anonymous historian above talks about how the Jews’ rejection of Jesus was taken by medieval Christian persecutors as a defilement of what they (the Christians) found holy. Therefore, violent acts against the Jews — who were a living denial that Jesus Christ was the Son of God — were considered expressions of self-defense, and of restoring the right social order.

Seen in that light, you begin to understand why the MAGA hats atop the heads of white Christian boys who had been in town for a pro-life rally became a condensed symbol of defilement of all that secular liberals hold sacred. Why didn’t the liberals in media and on social media rage against the Black Israelite cult, which was caught on film being openly and viciously racist and anti-gay? Because progressivism today is a supersessionist movement that is a reaction to Christianity and what they construe as “whiteness.” As hateful as they are, the Black Israelites do not inspire the same contempt within the mind of the progressive, not only because as blacks, they are favored victims in the progressive pantheon, but also because secular progressivism considers itself an antagonist to Christianity. This is true:

…[Tweet about “It’s not Christian to be Christian.”]

Put another way, in the dynamics of the crude supersessionist mindset, to be a Christian requires hating Jews — not non-Christians, but Jews. To be a secular liberal is to hate Christians — not non-liberals, but Christians. Because in both cases, the “new religion” came out of the “old religion,” and the son must kill the father to rule.

Was there anyone who had less power in medieval Christendom than Jews? The less power they had, the more they had to be hated (in this logic). Similarly, as the power and presence of traditional Christians fades, expect the attacks on us to increase in frequency and viciousness. There must be as little social presence and cultural memory of us left as possible. If there is no shared memory of us, and our religion, then we cannot be part of the social order. This, by the way, is why drafters of the 2004 European Union constitution wanted the document to indicate that Europe went from Rome to the Enlightenment, with barely a mention of Christianity.

What we are dealing with here, in sight of the Lincoln Memorial, is what Connerton calls political theology. The political theology of the ancien régime was expressed symbolically by the archbishop placing the crown on the head of the king, showing the connection between the sacred and the ruler. This is why the revolutionaries decapitated Louis XVI: one ritual had to be negated by a counter-ritual.

It makes sense that Nathan Phillips, the Indian provocateur, went after the MAGA hat confrontation with his fellow protesters to the Catholic basilica in Washington, and tried to invade the sacred space during mass. It would have been an act of sacrilege, and therefore one of political theology. Under secular liberalism — a social order that includes many Catholic leaders (see Darel Paul’s excellent piece today on “Our Therapeutic Bishops”) — people like Nathan Phillips are the bearers of the new “sacred” order.

Expect more of this. Culture war is, at bottom, religious war, because sociologically speaking, culture derives from cult, a system of religious veneration and devotion. This is why the facts emerging from the clash at the Lincoln Memorial — facts that negated the initial progressive reading of the event — did not change the minds of progressive devotees. This is not a matter of facts and reason. They wanted a martyr — a witness to the evil of their enemies — and they manufactured one. They’re still doing it.

A comment by Andrew Sullivan:

To put it bluntly: They were 16-year-olds subjected to verbal racist assault by grown men; and then the kids were accused of being bigots. It just beggars belief that the same liberals who fret about “micro-aggressions” for 20-somethings were able to see 16-year-olds absorbing the worst racist garbage from religious bigots … and then express the desire to punch the kids in the face.

How did this grotesque inversion of the truth become the central narrative for what seemed to be the entire class of elite journalists on Twitter? That’s the somewhat terrifying question.